I hope this doesn’t sound overly pedantic, but I believe there are some important distinctions between “could,” “would,” “will,” and “can.” These nuances might be worth clarifying in the context of Welsh.
I’ll try to explain my thoughts concisely (and hopefully not come across as waffling!).
In Challenge 16 of Level 3 (Classic Challenges), the phrase “wnei di” appears to be used interchangeably for “could,” “would,” “will,” and “can you?” However, I think these words have quite distinct meanings:
Could – Refers to an ability under a condition, e.g., “Could you lift that rock with training?” (Allet).
Would – Indicates that something would happen if a condition is met, e.g., “Would you lift that rock if I asked you to?” (Fyddet).
Will – Simply asks if something is going to happen, e.g., “Will you lift the rock?” (Fyddi).
Can – Inquires about the ability to do something, e.g., “Can you lift the rock?” (Alli).
It seems that “wnei” is a colloquial contraction of “gwnei”, the second-person singular future tense of “gwneud” (to do/make), which typically means “Will you?”
Are these distinctions less rigid in Welsh? Or is “wnei di” simply versatile in colloquial contexts, allowing it to encompass multiple English equivalents?
Remember that a question usually starts with a soft mutation, so wnei di? is just the expected mutated form, and not a contraction at all, colloquial or otherwise.
As to how important these distinctions are in either language, I wouldn’t want to venture a guess. Welsh has the appropriate vocabulary to express these nuances, so you can use these forms if you so desire, but in my opinion you’ll get along just fine with wnei di.
For my own part, I don’t really see a notable difference between Allet ti agor y drws i fi? and Wnei di agor y drws i fi? … both would lead me to opening the door for the person who asked.
I think that the everyday English usages of could, would, will, and can (and may!) are not quite as clear cut as that. Whilst your definitions are entirely correct, we don’t stick to them in colloquial English.
If I’m being polite, I don’t ask someone “Will you pass the salt?”, I ask “Could you pass the salt?” or “Would you pass the salt?” or “Can you pass the salt?”. I’m not asking them about their ability to pass the salt, I’m asking them to actually do it, but using a form of conditional is considered more polite than asking them bluntly to do it.
Pedants will complain that children ask “Can I get down from the table?” instead of “May I?”, as they are asking for permission instead of inquiring about their own capabilities, but “Can I?” is frequently used to ask permission, as is “Could I?”.
I’m not a fluent Welsh speaker, but I’d be surprised if Welsh doesn’t do the same thing. Certainly, I’ve noticed that “Fedra i?” is used for both “Can I?” and “Could I?” in the Northern course, rather than using “Fedrwn i?” for could.
I’d be wary of thinking that the distinctions are any more or less rigid in Welsh than in English, given they are pretty lax in English.
When it comes to polite command / request forms in Welsh, there are basically just wnei di/nei di & wnewch chi/newch chi and alli/elli di & alwch/ellwch chi (and the equivalent fedri di & fedrwch chi in the North). The relationship between these is the same as their English equivalents i.e. fairly lax and interchangeable for “can” & “could”. The fyddi di & fyddwch chi is the less polite, more direct command/request form.
Pedants most certainly do object to “Can” in place of “May”! When I was a small child, asking “Can I?” was generally answered with a teasing “I don’t know. Can you?”
“May I?” is considered the correct way to ask permission, among pedants. “May” and “might” are less concrete than “will” and “shall”, and it often seems to be the case that we form politeness by speaking less definitely.
Not just Welsh and English, either. There’s a story that goes around online of a Japanese person so shy and deferential that when the storyteller asked why she was sad, he learned that she might have had a cat, which possibly had died.
Actually, they could well be used interchangeably.
“I’m tired. Can you drive the bus?” asks another person to drive the bus, it doesn’t ask them if they are able to drive the bus. It means exactly the same as “I’m tired. Will you drive the bus?”. And, to be honest, I’d be much more likely to use ‘can’ than ‘will’ in that context.
And this is the thing – context is everything. We understand the intent from the context, and that gives us a clear idea of whether the speaker is asking about ability or about a future action.
The quote is ‘This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put’.
Churchill (if he really said it) was laughing at the sort of pedant who goes to silly lengths to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition (the so-called stranded preposition).
For any one who’s interested in finding the truth about many of these ‘grammar rules which aren’t’, Oliver Kamm’s book Accidence Will Happen is a good fun read. Here he is on stranded prepositions:
The most notorious judgment advanced by the grammarians was the objection to the STRANDED PREPOSITION – the notion that you mustn’t end a sentence with a preposition. The rule is devoid of merit or reputability but it gets repeated constantly. The prohibition on stranded prepositions comes from Dryden; no one had thought of it before. Engaging in the popular recreation of criticising writers of the past for linguistic transgressions that they would never have thought of, Dryden targeted Ben Jonson for his usage here: ‘The waves and dens of beasts could not receive / The bodies that those souls were frighted from.’
Not only does Dryden criticise Jonson, he also criticises himself for having used stranded prepositions in An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. The problem, says Dryden, is ‘the preposition in the end of the sentence; a common fault with him, and which I have but lately observed in my own writings’ (emphasis added). (Kamm, Oliver. Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage (p. 90). Orion. Kindle Edition. )
From what I’ve read, Welsh had the same problem of ‘not being Latin enough for early modern grammarians’…
I am very familiar with that one.
It’s a useful quote when the rest of the family has gone far enough with the pedantic teasing and you just want to talk without criticism.
Heaven forbid I ever split an infinitive…
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